I recently read some recommendations about System Ninja & how well it works to scan & find junk files in your system. I ran it on my win10 laptop a few days ago. Its a PC that I freshly reinstalled the OS in early Sept. It found all kinda of junk/ temp files. I deleted them & freed up a lot more space. I was very impressed. The program has a feature to scan for duplicate files too. I did that scan. Unlike the junk scan that took about 3 minutes, this scan took a couple of hours. It found a TON of files. I looked some of them over & didn't recognize them. They looked to be duplicate files or files with very similar names. I was going to delete them but got worried. It just seemed like sooooo many files, 100s if not a 1000 files!! I was worried I might be deleting important system files along with the junk duplicate files.

-Has anyone done the Duplicate File scan with this program?

-If so did you delete all the duplicate files it found?

-If you haven't done either...in general are duplicate file scanners/deleters safe to use?

They looked to be duplicate files or files with very similar names. I was going to delete them but got worried.

Smart!

For sure, similar names means nothing.

Quote:

Are you short of space on your hard drive? If not forget it

I agree 100%.

Unless you are running critically low on space, having extra files on your drive causes no harm or performance problems whatsoever.

I recommend you run Windows own Disk Cleanup.

Also, it is likely many of those duplicates were found in the Windows.old folder. This can be deleted but if you do, you will not be able to restore to the previous version should something go wrong. So should you delete it if all is good? There is no need as Windows will automatically purge that folder after 30 days.

Yep I have a ton of free HDD space. I was just curious if all those files were slowing my system down. I won't bother with the Dup File scan. I'll do the built-in Disk Clen option from time to time. Thanks for the advice!!

Hi, System ninja has very good code, so what duplicates it finds are duplicates, the problem is what files can you safely remove? With a modern HDD and plenty of space my advice is to not bother. They do take up some space, however unless space is a problem I would not worry about it. It is a myth that they slow your computer down, the system will only draw on the file it needs the others are ignored so it gives no appreciable performance boost, those that say it does are either ignorant or deliberately trying to sell you something. I use Ninja, I only use the junk files delete, it does a good safe job here.

A trick I learned many years ago when wondering if safe to delete an unfamiliar file or folder (if Bing Google does not tell me what it is for) is to simply rename the file or folder by appending the name with the date and the word "delete", then see if something breaks (get a file not found error).

Then, I just go about my business for the next few days and see if everything is still working. What typically happens for me is I forget about it until weeks or even months later until I stumble on the file or folder again. By appending the folder or file name with the date and the word "delete" I can see how long it has been since I renamed it, and "delete" reminds me of my intentions. If all has been working since that date, I know it is safe to delete.

If something breaks, since I only "appended" text to the name instead of totally renaming it, I don't have to remember the original name - I can easily see what it was, and simply cut off my appendage. I mean rename it back and be good to go.